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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24677134">The Edges of America</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaxenfreckle/pseuds/flaxenfreckle'>flaxenfreckle</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Alice Isn't Dead (Podcast), The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Dialogue-Only, Original Statement (The Magnus Archives), Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), its almost 4 in the morning whoops, leaning on the entity speculation, mostly lmao</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 06:40:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,017</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24677134</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaxenfreckle/pseuds/flaxenfreckle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Statement of Keisha Taylor, regarding...a roadtrip at the “edges of America” and the, uh,  Hungry Entities encountered during. Statement taken directly from subject June 15, 2017. Audio recording by Jonathon Sims.  Statement begins.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alice/Keisha | The Narrator (Alice Isn't Dead)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Edges of America</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Timeline what timelines??? My canon now yall. Takes place sometime during Jon's time in America, but i fudged the dates a little since it doesnt really line up too well with Keisha's timeline. Oh well lmao</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“Uh, Yes, Ms. -”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mrs.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“R-right. Mrs. Taylor, you wanted to...make a statement on what you’ve seen?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes, I mean, having someone to listen for once would be nice.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“...For once?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes, I’m a truck driver and well it's only me and the road and the radio for hours, and having someone else to know - to </span>
  <em>
    <span>listen</span>
  </em>
  <span> - it’d be - i’d like it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Right, right,”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“...”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“...”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So I just talk into…?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ah, yes, yes I’m sorry, you-you can just record your statement into this and I’ll try to do as much follow up as I can.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“For your sake I hope you don’t find anything.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“...Right. A-anyways, Statement of Keisha Taylor, regarding...a </span>
  <em>
    <span>roadtrip</span>
  </em>
  <span> at the “edges of America” and the, uh,  </span>
  <em>
    <span>Hungry </span>
  </em>
  <span>Entities encountered during. Statement taken directly from subject June 15, 2017. Audio recording done by Jonathon Sims. Statement begins.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know, I wasn’t kidding before. I think you’re the first person who’s actually listened to me talk about these things.  </span>
  <em>
    <span>Really </span>
  </em>
  <span>listened. Usually I just. Sit in my truck, driving the empty stretches of interstate and talk into the nothingness, hoping that someo - that </span>
  <em>
    <span>she’ll</span>
  </em>
  <span> be listening somehow. But that’s not what i’m here to talk about is it?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A little bit of  an explanation. My wife, Alice, disappeared sometime two years ago. One day there, and the next day, gone. The air of warmth she created around her, now a cheap, cold imitation. A mist. A choking fog. But a few months ago, after the funeral, after the mourning and the support groups and the therapy and the picking up the pieces - on the news there she is. Looking at all the tragedy like nothing is a surprise - like she knew exactly what was happening. Looking - for all the world - like she belongs there, staring into the camera. Staring right at me. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I never watched the news before that. Why bother? But after I tried not to miss a single second of it, hoping that I could just see another glimpse of her. Trying to convince myself I wasn’t going insane and just </span>
  <em>
    <span>seeing </span>
  </em>
  <span>what I wanted to see. But there she was, in the smallest towns, that nobody would know the names of. The hearts of another place, and brutal murders, horrific happenings, cutting the hearts of those places out, leaving nothing but gaping emptiness and the shape of a monster too terrible to describe.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And in the midst of it all, there she'd be. Alice. My wife, not dead. Good to know. Great maybe. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I began to look through her things after that.  I mean at one point it's moving on right?  Sorting through the past to make room for the future. Being tidy and - it's not tying loose ends, but coming to terms with how you’ll always have those frayed, broken pieces left over no matter what. I was trying to look for clues, for - for </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything</span>
  </em>
  <span> really. An explanation? A cause to the effect? I mean there was no reason - I </span>
  <em>
    <span>still</span>
  </em>
  <span> can’t think of a single reason she would-would just...disappear like that. I never thought it would come to me searching through her things, desperately watching the news hoping to grasp one more look of her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Alice </span>
  <em>
    <span>isn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> dead. She </span>
  <em>
    <span>isn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span>. And now those frayed ends are tangled. She’s left me to sort through the knots.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Looking through her things, I came across one continuous phrase: Bay and Creek Shipping. Over and over again Bay and Creek Shipping, Bay and Creek Shipping. Alice didn’t work for a trucking company. Not that I knew of anyway. And all of - </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span> only makes me wonder. How much </span>
  <em>
    <span>did </span>
  </em>
  <span>I know her anyway? Once, I would have said wholly, but not entirely. But now the fog of doubt creeps in and it’s right. I didn’t know her as well as I thought I did. Not enough to know we would end up like this.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I - I’m sorry. I’m getting off track. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Alice. My not dead wife. She began to show up on the news and I began to write down every place I saw her, a list that became a map of America and what would anyone else have done in my situation? Maybe not leave everything behind the way I did. Certainly not quit the day job and the groups and then break the pieces all over again to become a trucker for the mysterious shipping company that was the only clue in their missing wife’s cold case.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And that’s when I first encountered him. It.  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Have you...have you ever experienced something so terrible and revolting that the image refuses to leave your mind? That...Has it ever left you with aftershocks that still root you to the ground and every agonizing second plays over and over again until it just doesn’t?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>People say traumatizing events are like dreams - or nightmares I suppose. But what I saw - what I </span>
  <em>
    <span>still</span>
  </em>
  <span> see in the fogged out recesses of late night drives - was anything but. What I noticed the most was how real everything felt. Clarity that cut through the hazy mist and I knew I wouldn’t be able to remember any part of it incorrectly. I was there to see it all, every single thing in a play by play. One of the worst days of my life. If they can be measured in such simple ways.</span>
</p>
<p><span> I was sitting at the diner part of a gas station when I saw it. Him. His shirt was filthy, dirtier than you’d think a diner would allow - would </span><em><span>serve. </span></em><span>The single word “Thistle” on the upper right.</span> <span>And he wore a baseball cap.</span></p>
<p>
  <span>And he was eating an omelet. But it wasn’t the omelet, it was the way he was eating the omelet - shoveling thick, greasy strands of egg into his mouth with crooked, disjointed fingers - the nails a sickly translucent yellow that stood out amongst the grime of his hands.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And all through it, he was staring at me. His irises were layered in darkness and the whites the same yellow of his nails, tinged with the faintest hint of being bloodshot. He saw me staring at him, staring at me, and then we were staring at each other. After a few tense seconds, he stood up and approached my table. When he walked it was...like his legs didn’t want to cooperate with him, like his fingers -  the same jerky, stilted movements that spoke of something...inhuman and monstrous. It walked like its legs weren’t muscle and bone but sacks of meat attached carelessly and with abandon.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he spoke. His voice was a familiar hollowing, but - wrong. I was - I am...? The hollowing that had followed me before - </span>
  <em>
    <span>It</span>
  </em>
  <span> - was the sound of empty streets, houses too large and too grand. An emptiness that only fed into the empty. His voice was the accidental hollowing of the wind. Of bare trees and striped bone, where sinew and blood once pumped, now the unmistakable glint of white bone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s a fine evening.” He said, “Doesn’t look much like rain.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Up close I could see in detail how egg encrusted his lips and chin - his teeth an impossibility of spacing and numbers, that didn’t make sense. Nothing about his tone matched the words he was saying. It was said like a threat. Like a promise. Like a warning. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And you want people like that to leave you alone. So I didn’t say anything at first. But people who already have their minds made up to bother you...well they don’t half ass it. They’ve already made up their minds to be awful, and they’ll let you know it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I hope you don’t mind if I join you,” He said. Not even a request or a question - a joke was what it was. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I actually was hoping to eat alone.” I said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Good people deserve good things.” He said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I didn’t know what to say to that - what could I have? So I didn’t say anything. Instead I watched and watched as he scratched his cheek, a piece of it grey and oozing yellow viscera plopping on the table with the same care taken to the omelet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It's dangerous out here.” He said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Out where?” I said. “This state? This country? Life? Life is dangerous? Did you come over here to explain death to me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He laughed, his teeth sharp and angular and glinting with grease, and a red I didn’t care to examine. “Yes,” He said. “I came over to explain death to you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He leaned in close, his rotting breath, not bad, but earthy - like fruit turning to soil. “You wanna see something funny?” He got up and his slack face and neutral expression was...almost human. Like a bad artist's impression of a face. Almost right - almost normal, but not enough. Never enough.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Thistle said his shirt.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He walked over to a man - a truck driver.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey Earl,” The Thistle Man said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Huh?” Said Earl looking up and just as upset as me to be interrupted. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But. But then the Thistle Man grabbed Earl by the back of his neck and Earl’s face went vacant. Like </span>
  <em>
    <span>he</span>
  </em>
  <span> was in the dream and</span>
  <em>
    <span> I</span>
  </em>
  <span> was the reality, unable to tear my eyes away. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Thistle Man, picked Earl up by the neck and Earl walked with him. And - and no one did anything - just nothing. I followed out into the parking lot. Dark and unnatural. He was waiting for me. And the two men were shadows against the shadows of the night, not even able to be dispersed with the occasional car or truck driving by. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Just me, and a man, and a monster pretending to be a man.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Earl couldn’t move. And he stared, eyes wide with a fear of the future he no longer was in. I could only imagine how my eyes looked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The-the </span>
  <em>
    <span>thing</span>
  </em>
  <span> because it was not - it </span>
  <em>
    <span>isn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> a man - it took a bite out of Earl. Tore out a chunk of flesh right at the artery of the armpit and Earl began to bleed. And the thing- the monster seemed to revel in our fear. Earl’s fear of dying. Mine of what my death might look like. Its teeth angular and impossible and a glistening red. And it began to pick out bits of Earl - Earl who now cried, and made the slightest whimper but could not pull away - with the same jerky, flat, neutral nothing demeanor of movements it had done to the omelet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This wasn’t a meal. Or something it had to do to survive. This was a demonstration. A threat. A promise. A warning.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I ran back to my truck, I locked the doors, and I pulled out of the parking lot as fast as I could. I didn’t look back. I didn’t look back at Earl.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I cried - of course I did. The haze of fog obscuring the details as I drove myself to safety, the need to survive, overriding the urge to see if anything would follow if I stayed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I keep seeing it. Everywhere I go, at the edges of America - wherever Bay and Creek send me. At the shittiest diners and the crappiest dives. At rest stops and roadside attractions - the same uncoordinated, clumsy movements about it, it’s bones and flesh almost knitting themselves into semblance before crashing down again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I know it’s following me. And it wants me too. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I don’t know how long it’ll be before it eventually gets me. But I haven’t stopped searching for Alice - I </span>
  <em>
    <span>won’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>stop until I find her. I’m just hoping that whatever </span>
  <em>
    <span>It</span>
  </em>
  <span> is - however it finds me, that I get to Alice before it gets to me instead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>To me, only to me, it could ever be worth it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“...Statement ends. Ah, well, Mrs. Taylor I’m very sorry to hear about your missing wife. Good luck to you finding her and I will try to follow up with this at my earliest convenience.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thank you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I...I hope you find her. I hope you find whatever else you’re looking for too.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“...So do I.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading!!! Slam the mf kudos button if you enjoyed to any degree!!!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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